Design by nieces

My (5) wonderful nieces often ask me to make something for their birthdays/class birthdays/special events, and I am always more than happy to use it as an excuse to better my technique or try something interesting.

Miss M. wanted to have cookies that have a picture of a sun on it with sunglasses on it. Who am I to say to a request like that? As USUAL, I started baking at around 6pm evening before and was up until 5am finishing it up, to be fair my two month old doesn't exactly allow me to put baking ahead of him even if Mr. Handsome Man is entertaining him.

I have to say, I found absolutely the tastiest sugar cookie recipe. It's called "the Perfect Sugar Cookie" and I completely agree with it. Most amazing Sweetapolita even has a tutorial on my favorite Sugar Cookie, ones on a stick :) I'm still playing around with a royal icing recipe that I am perfectly happy with, so I would advice to just make your favorite one, or old school Wilton one.

I used yellow, orange and black food coloring to tint Royal icing. Outlines first with stiff yellow icing, then flooded with thinner yellow icing. Very quickly outlined it with orange (it was 5am at this point, so forgive the squiggly lines). Black icing was used for sunglasses, for a smirk I used a black food marker and orange food marker for corners. When Miss M. distributed the cookies in her classroom, the first thing the kids said "Teacher! There is a sharpie on my cookie!" Haha, I had to assure everyone that I would never give them anything unsafe to eat. Cookies were a hit and Miss M had the biggest grin the whole day and let me tell you I will stay up until 5am anyday for that kind of response :D

bake sale cookies

Here are some cookies I've made for a bakesale. It's my new hobby: decorating sugar cookies but I have a looong way to learn the techniques. So far I have been devouring blogs such as: Bake at 350 and Sugarbelle , Sweetapolita and I am Baker ... I think I am in love with all four of those ladies, in a non-creepy, non-stalkish (maybe a little bit) sort of way..

These strawberry cookies were inspired by (ahem, ahem copied from) Bake at 350's post on how to make flat dots when decorating. LOVE IT!!!

Mario stars cookies is what happens when I get tired of fancy decorating and just want to finish the dang things while cursing under my breath about my inability to say "no" .. Happens EVERY time I bake haha

Happy Easter!

In addition to cinnamon rolls aroma spreading throughout the house, these Cranberry-Orange scones turned out heavenly. Nothing better than a cup of tea with freshly baked scones.

Happy Easter to all!!

My greatest project!!

On March 30th, at 10:24AM my dearest Sticky Fingers McGee finally joined our family!! This is by far the best piece of Art I have ever created (ok ok Husband played a wee role in the process). It's quite a trip adjusting to our new life but we are loving every sleepless second of it :D

Cinnamon rolls from the Pioneer Woman

I am now the official "cinnamon roll baker" for holiday family events. I love the mess, the gooyiness (is that a word?), the smell of baking rolls and the the speed at which they disappear once they hit the table. I have tried a few different recipes (food network, various cooking sites, etc) and have to say that so far my favorite one are rolls by the Pioneer Woman. She truly creates magic with her rolls (although the next time I would probably omit the coffee, because to be honest the taste of it distracted me, and maple extract is absolutely impossible to find in Taiwan).

I made half of the recipe that I linked above and here is what I ended up with:

Rolling up the cinnamon-sugar-buttery goodness

On the way to the oven

Baked, but not glazed yet... I might have put too many of them together...

Final result, perfectly glazed and extremely tasty

Ooooh, Easter is coming up, sounds like a perfect excuse for some more rolls, plus you can freeze the rolls, either unbaked or baked (granted you have the patience and ability to plan ahead, qualities I was sadly born without)..

Happy Baking!